Many relationships suffer from a lack of self-esteem. A relationship’s self-esteem is connected to that of the partner’s, but it also has a life of its own. Genuine esteem is founded in the courage to see oneself truly, both the positive and negative aspects of who we are and how we function and malfunction in the world.

Lubrication is a fact of life – it is the grease that keeps the crank turning, the fluidity of a conversation that goes late into the night, the moisture that transforms the friction of skin-to-skin contact into a glide. I have spent much of my adult life thinking about lubricants, specifically sexual lubricants – and how to make them better. When I first began studying lubes, it was personal. I was searching for something that didn’t create so many negative side effects. The itching and burning from using them not only killed the mood but was threatening my desire to have a sex life.

I remember one of the fathers of a little girl on a soccer team I was coaching years ago who came out to me and told me he was going to go through a transgender process. We were friends, so I was able to ask him about his motivations to go through the painful and expensive process. He said he wanted to finally look how he felt.

It was only a couple of weeks ago when I was sitting in the waiting room, having been called back for another magnified view of my mammogram and an ultrasound for some suspicious lumps in my left breast. Something similar had happened several years before when I first began the yearly mammogram rite of passage, so I tried to assuage my fear that it was probably nothing. This is true for many women, getting called back in and frequently it is a false alarm – but, not always. The rate of illness in this part of the body is mind-boggling. Breast cancer affects one in eight and heart disease kills one in four women.

I am currently on a meditation retreat and about to begin three days of shared silence. Anyone who knows me would understand my anxiety about waking up and not talking. I could argue that it’s not my nature, that I learn more about myself and the world in the daily exchanges with the people around me. And I honestly lament not having more time to get to know the amazing tribe of people who are in attendance. But everyone assures me that this particular form of meditation is one of the most powerful ways of self-recognition as well as a direct path of feeling into your connection to the divine. We’ll see.

There is no time like long summer nights to cultivate our uniquely, profoundly human capacity for pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. Our pleasure response transforms our relationship to each other and even to life itself. Focusing on pleasure not only changes how we see our opportunities for intimate connection, but also invites us into a deeper relationship with our erotic soul.

It becomes hard to trust your own thinking when nothing seems to be working. The space between how I thought it would go and how it is going seems to widen in front of my eyes. Maybe most difficult of all is how often the undesirable outcomes around us spill over into our relationships, both at home and at work. An errant comment too easily turns into an argument. I become blind to my impact on people around me, caught up in the unresolved problems surrounding me. During times like these, we often underestimate the power of the choices we make and how it can create a path back towards what’s working or down the slippery slope of self-destruction, which my husband affectionately calls “flirting with the gutter.”

Some of my most vivid memories of my early sex life are not of the satisfying post-coitus elated release, but the opposite. It is hard to forget the many years when sex was more a path of frustration than pleasure; when I was still figuring out how my body responded and why it often didn’t. In retrospect, I think it was my strong intention to find pleasure that kept me coming back to try again – of being willing to live inside the questions I had about pleasure even without many answers.

Most of us don’t realize how frequently we are checked out of our life. We struggle to stay present in the day-to-day with the never-ending onslaught of digital feeds and new devices that offer superficial connectivity at best, but we lose out on the true contact that feeds our soul and makes us human. More and more scientific research is showing how much we give up when we trade the voyeurism of social media for the real-time relating that makes us feel seen and heard. Even more disturbing is how we are losing the muscle memory to do the messy and gratifying work of truly showing up, risking our heart, and communicating. It is in the trenches of our life, in the mess of people’s feelings spilling over onto us that we are really connected and that we can offer our best self. Start today with one of these tips and see how different life can feel when you fully show up!

Usually, when we think about doing things for Earth Day, we ask ourselves: “How can I impact the environment around me?”. Rarely do we consider how powerful an inner cleansing can be to our external circumstances. This has been especially true when it comes to my intimate relationships – the more I have tried to push change on my partner or my kids, the less impact it has. Conversely, when I re-focus to the noise in myself and bring some light and compassion to my own inner struggles, the relationships start to shift by themselves.

Days are becoming balmy, daylight lasting into evening, and the flowering trees are now awash in color. If ever there was a moment that the kiss was invented somehow I am sure it was when the world awoke to springtime. It’s hard to imagine a world in which we didn’t kiss- no wonder that the earliest recorded kisses date back to the very beginning of recorded time. The ancient Indian Vedic scriptures describe lovers “setting mouth to mouth”. Even earlier, historians have understood the kiss as the foundation of our biological drive to reproduce. The earliest recorded kissing began with the practice of brushing noses which allowed potential partners to immediately identify whether the match was compatible.

Your body is your temple and it requires your attention every day. Raise the integrity of the food you consume. Start with just one meal a day and notice how your body feels. Notice how your emotions rest. Notice how your thinking clears when you are nourished. Cravings are asking to be witnessed, not fed. Bringing your consciousness to your body is a change that will literally embody every other good thing you desire.

Good Clean Love’s Mission ...is to increase the awareness and experience of love in the world. Our business offers all-natural, organic feminine hygiene and premium intimacy products to enhance your ability to enjoy the passionate side of life.